
Gt^ 







Glass. 
Book. 



KANSAS— THE LECOMPTON CONSTITUTION. 



SI* EEC EC 



OF 



HON. AMOS P. GRANGER, 



OF NETV YORK, 



IN THE 



U. S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, 



MARCH 24, 1858, 



•f Was- 




WASHINGTON, D. C. 

BUELL & BLANCHARD, PRINTERS. 

' ~- 1858. 



/^5 

■^74- 



SPEECH OF MR. GRANGER. 



Mr. Chairman : Passing by tlie all-disturbing sub- 
ject of Slavery, for the present, I arrive at objections 
to the passage of this Leconipton Constitution, that, 
with any candid mind, ought to outweigh every con- 
sideration that can be oftered in its favor> 

First. That the people of Kansas have, by the 
Kansas-Nebraska act, a clear and undoubted right, 
and they alone, to form their Constitution as they, in 
their judgment, may think best. 

This, I conclude, no one will deny, and therefore 
I deem it not debatable. 

Secondly. That the people of Kansas are, by a very 
decided majority, opposed to that Constitution, and 
have so declared at a full and fair election — an elec- 
tion held pursuant to an act of the Territorial Legis- 
lature, assembled by order of a Governor w^ho was 
appointed by the President ^ and that the said election 
was the only one ever held in the Territory of Kansas 
to decide for or against that Constitution. 

Sir, is not this also true ? I believe it is, and I trust 
no member on this floor will attempt to controvert 
it. Thus far, then, we agree. 

If I am not mistaken in these two facts, to wit : 
that the people of Kansas have the right to decide 
on their own Constitution, and that they have fairly 
and solemnly passed upon this Lecompton Constitu- 
tion, and rejected it ; I ask, then, is there a member 



present who will vote to compel the people of Kansas 
to accept that Constitution, and forego the exercise 

of the great fundamental right of self-government ■ 

a right on which our whole republican edifice is 
erected ? 

If, then, these two facts are true — and I do not 
expect to sec the first member who will call in ques- 
tion the truth of either — I say to the Democrats, 
Americans, and Republicans, are not these objections 
paramount and conclusive against the passage of this 
Lecompton Constitution? 

Here I might rest and submit the cause, and, with 
a fair and candid trial on its merits, with full confi- 
dence await the issue. 

Sir, it would be a curiosity to see a Northern Repre- 
sentative vote direct to make a .slave State north of 
36 degrees 30 minutes, and particularly one professing 
to be a Democratic Representative from the State of 
New York. 

The members from that State mu^ know — and you 
do know — ^first, that a vast majority of your constit- 
uents, of all parties, loathe and detest that nefarious 
swindle called the Lecompton Constitution ; and that 
there is not one Congressional district of the thirty- 
four, where a majority of the voters are in favor of 
its passage. 

And secondly, you also know that if that Consti- 
tution is forced on Kansas at the dictum of the Execu- 
tive, by an arbitrary vote of Congress, it is done 
against the will of an overwhelming majority of the 
people of Kansas. 

^ Here I desire to present for the inspection and re- 
view of Northern members, and their constituents in 
particular, one leading principle of the Lecompton 
Constitution, which is in the words following, to wit : 
Art. 7.— slavery. 

" Sec. 1. The right of property is before and higher 
' than any constitutional sanction, and the right of the 
' owner of a slave to such slave, and its increase, is 



' the same and as inviolable as the right of the owner 
* of any property whatever." 

Now, then, to pass the Lecompton Constitution, and 
make it the Constitution for the State of Kansas, by 
the aid of Democratic votes from the State of New 
York, with New York and Kansas both opposed, 
would be interesting entirely. If what I have said 
be true, I have said enough alread}^ to bar the door 
against it. 

If the people of the State of New York, with great 
unanimity, desire their Representatives to vote against 
it, and if at the same time their Representatives know 
that the people of Kansas with singular unanimity 
reject it, and will not accept it, and that their Legis- 
lature by a unanimous vote protest against it, and 
officially declare they never will submit to it on any 
terms whatever, in all conscience, I ask, is not that 
enough — I say, is not that enough to warrant, nay, 
command, its rejection b}^ every vote from the Empire 
State ? 

But more than that ; you know that the repeal of 
the Missouri Compromise was a scandalous violation 
of plighted faith, dishonest and dishonorable in its 
character, a costly sacrifice of Southern honor, and 
the most dangerous move that Slavery ever made. 
It was aggressive. It luas agitation of the ivorst sort. 
It was an unexpected declaration of war — Slavery 
against Freedom, and Slavery the invader ; and it may 
prove to be a war of extermination. 

Sir, it was done to steal the march and crowd Sla- 
ver}'- where it had never been before, and where it 
was not welcome. It absolves all Northern men from 
delicacy towards the so-called institution of Slavery, 
and leaves them free to speak of it and treat it as it 
deserves — a loathsome, lawless invader of the rights 
of man, in direct violation of the Declaration of 
American Independence, at variance with the Articles 
of Confederation, and openly at Avar w^ith the Consti- 
tution of tlie United States, the President to the con- 
trary notwithstanding. 



That Southern men, brought up from infancy to 
prize and respect it, and educated from generation to 
generation to think it right and lawful, that they be 
prejudiced in its favor is not a mystery. 

The same relations and circumstances might pro- 
duce the same results in us. 

For them to seek to extend Slavery is not so strange ; 
but for Northern members, brought up at Gamaliel's 
feet, inhaling from early life the healthful sentiments 
of Northern freemen, and taught to believe Slavery 
unlawful and wrong — that such a member should be 
found to part with the approbation of his constituents, 
if not of his conscience, and, in the time of trial, 
to desert the cause of Freedom, his country, and his 
friends, and he himself the unlucky instrument by 
which the bliglit of chattel slavery shall curse the soil 
and blast the future of a young, rising empire, is 
painful to anticipate. 

You do know that when Kansas came to elect her 
first Legislature, to make her first laws, a band of 
rufiians near five thousand strong, armed to the teeth, 
came from Missouri, took the polls by storm, and 
drove the honest voters away ; elected their Legisla- 
ture, many of whom lived then and now in Missouri, 
and returned back in triumph ; and all to make Kan- 
sas a slave State. 

You do know that for objecting to this outrage, a 
Democratic Governor of Kansas (Reeder) was re- 
moved by the President, and lost caste with the friends 
of Slavery. 

Why, there have been xibout as many Democratic 
Governors of Kansas as there were "sons of one 
Skeva, a Jew," unceremoniously removed from office 
and turned adrift, one after another, because they 
refused to go all lengths to crush out Freedom and 
drive out freemen, to make Kansas a slave State. 

You do know that the Free State men of Kansas 
were persecuted and hunted and robbed and murder- 
ed, and that an alien ruffian Legislature would give 



them no protection ; and all to extirpate free pnnci- 
ples and free men ; and that it was an offence against 
the tyrannic laws of that Legislature to even say that 
man cannot hold property in man. An oftence, nay, 
a felony, punishable with the State's prison. 

Is that liberty of speech ? — not allowed so much as 
to speak against Slavery — and that a law the Presi- 
dent sent his troops to execute ! 

Is that not despotism? For far less than that, our 
fathers declared Kiiig George '^ unfit to he the ruler of 
a free .people!''' 

They took up arms to defend their rights. 

He sent Gage to Boston with three thousand men 
to overawe the people. 

And we have twenty-five hundred sent to Kansas 
on exactly the same errand. 

You know the city of Lawrence was burned at 
noonday by border-ruffian officers, while United States 
troops were near at hand, anxious for orders (which 
they never got) to interfere and save the town. 

Lawrence was the quiet home of Free State men. 

You know that the Government of Kansas was a 
foul usurpation, countenanced by the President of the 
United States, and upheld by his troops, with a design 
to make Kansas a slave State. 

You know that cruel and corrupt judges have been 
kept in office there, "to clear the guilty and varnish 
crimes," and all to advance the cause of Slavery, and 
make Kansas a slave State. 

You know that the worst of border ruffians have 
enjoyed the smiles and patronage of Federal favor in 
the Territory of Kansas, with a design to make Kan- 
sas a slave State. 

You know that at subsequent elections the vilest 
frauds have been acted over and over again, to prevent 
a fair election, and to make Kansas a slave State. 

You know the Lecompton Constitution is to be put 
through, if possible, by Executive power and patron- 
age, covered all over as it is with fraud, and spotted 



with corruiition, and thus rivet on Kansas the detested 
curse of chattel slavery, and that against the faithful, 
persevering, manly opposition of her people, as ex- 
pressed at a fair and legal election, hy a majority of 
more than five to one. 

Will you. Representatives of the free and frce- 
labor-loving North, will you endorse this catalogue 
of cruelty and crimes, and give your votes for the 
notorious Lecompton Constitution, and place your 
names on everlasting record as the aiders and abettors 
of an Executive who perverts and falsifies the Con- 
stitution, and daily and 7*" \iciously connives at all 
the matchless border-iufrian villainies '^f Kansas, with 
a single eye to compel Kansas to sicbmit to a Consti- 
tution 7iot her own, and become a slave State against 
her will ? 

And now, to cap the climax of absurdity and wrong, 
you are to be disciplined, and, if possible, reduced, 
and seduced to do an act that you could never justify, 
the memory of which would haunt you while you live. 

Let it be known in all the North, nay, through all 
the land. South and North, that not one Republican 
member was found to falter, not one was doubtful or 
missing, that every one was at his post, by night or 
day, and stood by his integrity to the last. 

If a President with his Haynaus can be upheld in 
this attempt to stifle liberty in Kansas, I trust it will 
be done, if done it must be, by Democratic votes, 
and none other. , 

Sir, if to fill the contract and make the tally, the 
President can find cringing doughfaces from the North, 
though they hail from Democratic ranks, may the 
Empire State be spared the sacrifice. 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 

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